Siena Heights retakes the Milk Jug with 66-53 victory over Adrian

Wednesday

Nov 27, 2013 at 2:00 PM

By John CastleDaily Telegram Sports Writer

The Jug is back on the east side.

Thanks to an impressive first-half run by a defensive Siena Heights University squad Tuesday night, the Saints built a double-digit lead by halftime and went on to defeat crosstown rival Adrian College, 66-53, at Merillat Sport and Fitness Center.

The Saints (4-6) will take the annual trophy back to campus after winning the Battle for the Milk Jug, which was carried around after the game by most of the SHU players. Adrian (0-4) had regained possession of the Jug after posting a 62-40 win in last year’s game.

The first five minutes of the game set the stage for what the crowd hoped would be a tightly-contested game. The teams traded successful possessions for those first few minutes, with Adrian College holding a 16-13 lead after two Brad Hohman free throws.

The Saints’ defense and overall intensity started paying dividends in the form of a 21-0 run that turned Adrian’s small lead into a 34-16 Siena Heights lead 6:34 left in the first half following a Jerrel Martin slam dunk and a Stone Beckwith layup.

“We played really hard tonight, and we made a focused effort on the defensive side of the ball to make things happen for us,” explained Siena Heights coach Joe Pechota. “I think we had 16 straight stops in there and you could just see our kids really getting into it and getting real physical. I was real pleased with our energy.”

The Saints eventually worked their lead up to 19 points late in the firsts half before Adrian got six of those back on a conventional 3-point play by Curtis Gordon and a 3-point jumper by Mitchell Small with just seconds left in the half.

While the Saints played superior team defense in the first half, 6-6 freshman Jerrel Martin sent a couple swat-away messages by blocking a couple shots that probably would have been uncontested against other teams. Martin finished the game with team highs of four blocks and 11 rebounds.

Madison High graduate Jamison Webster, meanwhile, hit a couple long triples in the first half and went 3-for-4 from the field to lead the Saints with nine first-half points, and finished the game with team honors of 16 points.

Try as they may, the Bulldogs couldn’t overcome that huge first-half deficit, but did hit six straight free throws down the stretch to get the final score to 13 points.

Adrian’s offense has struggled in its first three games, averaging just over 50 points per game, but had five freshmen and sophomores on the floor for many minutes. Graduation took away a lot of their rebounding from last season, but 6-6 sophomore Braxton Southwell (Onsted High) is trying to take over that role.

Siena Heights took advantage of numerous Adrian fouls on fast-break chances, hitting 23-of-35 from the foul stripe while Adrian was just 11-for-14. The Bulldogs aren’t afraid to take the 3-pointer as a big part of their offense and hit 8-of-26 shots from long range. But overall, Adrian hit just 17-of-59 shots overall (28.8 percent) compared to the Saints’ 20-for-42 (47.6 percent) shooting.

In addition to Webster’s 16 points, 6-8 freshman Malachi Satterlee, an All-State first-teamer last year at Climax-Scotts, finished with 11 points and junior college transfer Christian Covile added 10.

Small, ironically one of the smallest players on the court, paced Adrian with 15 points and seven rebounds.

Siena Heights will return to action on Dec. 4 by hosting WHAC opponent Davenport while Adrian will be right back at the Merillat Center on Saturday when it hosts non-conference foe Marygrove.

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